At Kingston, Captain Denbigh goes ashore with first mate Jack Paul,
and pays over in Bank of England paper those one thousand pounds which
represent that one-sixth interest in the _John O’Gaunt_. While the
pair are upon this bit of maritime business, the three hundred mournful
blacks are landed under the supervision of the second mate. Among the
virtues which a cargo of slaves possesses over a shipment of cotton or
sugar or rum, is the virtue of legs. This merit is made so much of by
the energetic second officer of the _John O’Gaunt_, that, within half
a day, the last of the three hundred blacks is landed on the Kingston
quay. Received and receipted for by a bilious Spaniard with an umbrella
hat, who is their consignee, the blacks are marched away to the
stockade which will confine them while awaiting distribution among the
plantations. Captain Denbigh puts to sea with the _John O’Gaunt_ in
ballast the same evening. A brisk seaman, and brisker man of business,
is Captain Denbigh, and no one to spend money and time ashore, when he
may be making the one and saving the other afloat.
First mate Jack Paul, his fortune of one thousand pounds safe in the
strong-boxes of the Kingston bank, sallies forth to look for a ship. He
decides to go passenger, for the sake of seeing what it is like, and his
first thought is to visit his brother William by the Rappahannock. This
fraternal venture he forbears, when he discovers Kingston to be in the
clutch of that saffron terror the yellow fever. Little is being locally
said of the epidemic, for the town is fearful of frightening away its
commerce. The Kingston heart, like most human hearts, thinks more of its
own gold than of the lives of other men. Wherefore Kingston is sedulous
to hide the plague in its midst, lest word go abroad on blue water and
drive away the ships.
First mate Jack Paul becomes aware of Kingston for the death-trap it is
before he is ashore two days. It is the suspicious multitude of funerals
thronging the sun-baked streets, that gives him word. And yet the
grewsome situation owns no peculiar threat for him, since he has sailed
these blistering latitudes so often and so much that he may call himself
immune. For him, the disastrous side is that, despite the Kingston
efforts at concealment, a plague-whisper drifted out to sea, and as a
cautious consequence the Kingston shipping has dwindled to be nothing.
This scarcity of ships vastly interferes with that chance of a passage
home.
“The first craft, outward bound for England, shall do,” thinks first
mate Jack Paul. “As to William, I’ll defer my visit until I may go
ashore to him without bringing the yellow jack upon half Virginia.”
While waiting for that home-bound ship, first mate Jack Paul goes upon a
pilgrimage of respect to the tomb of Admiral Benbow. That sea-wolf lies
buried in the parish chapel-yard in King Street.
As first mate Jack Paul leaves the little burying-ground, he runs foul
of a polite adventure which, in its final expression, will have effect
upon his destiny. His aid is enlisted in favor of a lady in trouble.
The troubled lady, fat, florid and forty, is being conveyed along King
Street in her _ketureen_, a sort of sedan chair on two wheels, drawn by
a half-broken English horse. The horse, excited by a funeral procession
of dancing, singing, shouting blacks, capsizes the _ketureen_, and the
fat, florid one is decanted upon the curb at the feet of first mate
Jack Paul. Alive to what is Christian in the way of duty, he raises the
florid, fat decanted one, and congratulates her upon having suffered no
harm.
The _ketureen_ is restored to an even keel. The fat, florid one boards
it, though not before she invites first mate Jack Paul to dinner.
Being idle, lonesome, and hungry for English dishes, he accepts,
and accompanies the fat, florid one in the dual guise of guest and
bodyguard.
Sir Holman Hardy, husband to the fat, florid one, is as fatly florid as
his spouse. Incidentally he is in command of what British soldiers are
stationed at Kingston. The fat, florid one presents first mate Jack Paul
to her Hector, tells the tale of the rescue, and thereupon the three go
in to dinner. Later, first mate Jack Paul and his host smoke in the
deep veranda, where, during the cool of the evening, Sir Holman drinks
sangaree, and first mate Jack Paul drinks Madeira. Also Sir Holman
inveighs against the Horse Guards for consigning him to such a pit of
Tophet as is Kingston.
Between sangaree and maledictions levelled at the Horse Guards, Sir
Holman gives first mate Jack Paul word of a brig, the _King George’s
Packet_, out of China for Kingston with tea, which he looks for every
day. Discharging its tea, the _King George’s Packet_ will load with rum
for Whitehaven; and Sir Holman declares that first mate Jack Paul shall
sail therein, a passenger-guest, for home. Sir Holman is able to promise
this, since the fat, florid rescued one is the child of Shipowner Donald
of Donald, Currie & Beck, owners of the _King George’s Packet_.
“Which makes me,” expounds Sir Holman, his nose in the sangaree, “a kind
of son-in-law to the brig itself.”
He grumblingly intimates--he is far gone in sangaree at the time--that a
fleet of just such sea-trinkets as the _King George’s Packet_, so far
as he has experimented with the marital condition, constitutes the one
redeeming feature of wedlock.
“And so,” concludes the excellent Sir Holman, “you’re to go home with
the rum, guest of the ship itself; and the thing I could weep over is
that I cannot send my kit aboard and sail with you.”
Two days go by, and the _King George’s Packet_ is sighted off Port
Royal; twenty-four hours later its master, Captain Macadam---a Solway
man--is drinking Sir Holman’s sangaree. Making good his word, Sir Holman
sends for first mate Jack Paul, and that business of going passenger to
Whitehaven is adjusted.
“True!” observes Captain Macadam, when he understands--“true, the
_George_ isn’t fitted up for passengers. But”--turning to first mate
Jack Paul--“you’ll no mind; bein’ a seaman yours eh?”
“More than that, Captain,” breaks in Sir Holman, “since the port is
reeling full of yellow jack, some of your people might take it to sea
with them. Should aught go wrong, now, why here is your passenger, a
finished sailorman, to give you a lift.”
Captain Macadam’s face has been tanned like leather. None the less,
as he hears the above the mahogany hue thereof lapses into a pasty,
piecrust color. Plainly that word yellow jack fills his soul with fear.
He mentions the wearisome fact to first mate Jack Paul, as he and that
young gentleman, after their cigars and sangaree with Sir Holman, are
making a midnight wake for the change house whereat they have bespoken
beds.
“It’s no kindly,” complains Captain Macadam, “for Sir Holman to let me
run my brig blindfold into sic a snare. But then he has a fourth share
in the tea, and another in the rum; and so, for his profit like, he lets
me tak’ my chances. He’d stude better wi’ God on high I’m thinkin’, if
he’d let his profit gone by, and just had a pilot boat standin’ off and
on at Port Royal, to gi’ me the wink to go wide. I could ha’ taken the
tea to New York weel enou’. But bein’ I’m here,” concludes the disturbed
Captain, appealing to first mate Jack Paul, “what would ye advise?”
“To get your tea ashore and your rum aboard as fast as you may.”
“Ay! that’ll about be the weesdom of it!”
Captain Macadam can talk of nothing but yellow jack all the way to the
change house.
“It’s the first time I was ever in these watters,” he explains
apologetically, “and now I can smell fever in the air! Ay! the hond o’
death is on these islands! Be ye no afeard, mon?”
First mate Jack Paul says that he is not. Also he is a trifle irritated
at the alarm of the timorous Captain Macadam.
“That’ll just be your youth now!” observes the timorous one. “Ye’re no
old enou’ to grasp the responsibeelities.”
At four in the morning Captain Macadam comes into first mate Jack Paul’s
room at the change house. He is clad in his linen sleeping suit, and his
teeth are chattering a little.
“It’s the bein’ ashore makes my teeth drum,” he vouchsafes. “But what
I wushed to ask ye, lad, is d’ye believe in fortunes? No? Weel, then,
neither do I; only I remembered like that lang syne a wierd warlock sort
o’ body tells me in the port o’ Leith, that I’m to meet my death in the
West Injies. It’s the first time, as I was tellin’ ye, that ever I comes
pokin’ my snout amang these islands; and losh! I believe that warlock
chiel was right. I’ve come for my death sure.”
Captain Macadam promises his crew’ double grog and double wages, and
works night and day lightering his tea ashore, and getting his rum casks
into the _King George’s Packet_. Then he calls a pilot, and, with a
four-knot breeze behind him, worms his way along the narrow, corkscrew
channel, until he finds himself in open water.
Then the pilot goes over the side, and Captain Macadam takes the brig.
He casts an anxious eye astern at Port Royal, four miles away.
“I’ll no feel safe,” says he, “while yon Satan’s nest is under my
quarter. And afterward I’ll no feel safe neither. How many days, mon, is
a victeem to stand by and look for symptoms?”
First mate Jack Paul, to whom the query is put, gives it as his opinion
that, if they have yellow fever aboard, it will make its appearance
within the week.
“Weel that’s a mercy ony way!” says Captain Macadam with a sigh.
There are, besides first mate Jack Paul, and the Captain with his two
officers, twelve seamen and the cook--seventeen souls in all--aboard
the _King George’s Packet_ as, north by east, it crawls away from Port
Royal. For four days the winds hold light but fair. Then come head
winds, and the brig finds itself making long tacks to and fro in
the Windward Passage, somewhere between Cape Mazie and the Mole St.
Nicholas.
“D’ye see, mon!” cries Captain Macadam, whose fears have increased,
not diminished, since he last saw the Jamaica lights. “The vera weather
seeks to keep us in this trap! I’ll no be feelin’ ower weel neither, let
me tell ye!”
First mate Jack Paul informs the alarmed Captain that to fear the fever
is to invite it.
“I’m no afeard, mon,” returns Captain Macadam, with a groan, “I’m just
impressed.”
The timidities of the Captain creep among the mates and crew; forward
and aft the feeling is one of terror. The _King George’s Packet_ becomes
a vessel of gloom. There are no songs, no whistling for a wind. Even
the cook’s fiddle is silent, and the galley grows as melancholy as the
forecastle.
It is eight bells in the afternoon of the fourth day, when the man at
the wheel calls to Captain Macadam. He tosses his thumb astern.
“Look there!” says he.
Captain Macadam peers over the rail, and counts eleven huge sharks. The
monsters are following the brig. Also, they seem in an ugly mood, since
ever and anon they dash at one another ferociously.
“It’ll be a sign!” whispers Captain Macadam. Then he counts them.
“There’ll be ‘leven o’ them,” says he; “and that means we’re ‘leven to
die!” After this he dives below, and takes to the bottle.
Bleared of eye, shaken of hand, Captain Macadam on the fifth morning
finds first mate Jack Paul on the after deck. The eleven sharks are
still sculling sullenly along in the slow wake of the wind-bound brig.
“Be they there yet?” asks Captain Macadam, looking over the stern with a
ghastly grin. Then answering his own query: “Ay! they’ll be there--the
‘leven of ‘em!”
First mate Jack Paul, observing their daunting effect on the
over-harrowed nerves of Captain Macadam, is for having up his pistols to
take a shot at the sharks; but he is stayed by the other.
“They’ll be sent,” says Captain Macadam; “it’ll no do to slay ‘em, mon!
But losh! ain’t a sherk a fearfu’ feesli?” Then, seeing his hand shake
on the brig’s rail: “It’s the rum. And that’s no gude omen, me takin’ to
the rum; for I’m not preeceesely what you’d ca’ a drinkin’ body.”
Two hours later Captain Macadam issues from his cabin and seeks first
mate Jack Paul, where the latter is sitting in the shade of the main
sail.
“Mon, look at me!” he cries. “D’ye no see? I tell ye, Death has found me
oot on the deep watters!”
The single glance assures first mate Jack Paul that Captain Macadam is
right. His eyes are congested and ferrety; his face is flushed. Even
while first mate Jack Paul looks, he sees the skin turn yellow as a
lemon. He thumbs the sick man’s wrist; the pulse is thumping like a
trip-hammer. Also, the dry, fevered skin shows an abnormal temperature.
“Your tongue!” says first mate Jack Paul; for he has a working knowledge
of yellow jack.
It is but piling evidence upon evidence; the tongue is the color of
liver. Three hours later, the doomed man is delirious. Then the fever
gives way to a chill; presently he goes raving his way into eternity,
and the _King George’s Packet_ loses its Captain.
First mate Jack Paul sews the dead skipper in a hammock with his own
fingers; since, mates, crew and cook, not another will bear a hand.
When the hammock sewing is over, the cook aids in bringing the corpse
on deck. As the body slips from the grating into the sea, a thirty-two
pound shot at the heels, the cook laughs overboard at the sharks, still
hanging, like hounds upon a scent, to the brig’s wake.
“Ye’ll have to dive for the skipper, lads!” sings out the cook.
Offended by this ribaldry, first mate Jack Paul is on the brink of
striking the cook down with a belaying pin. For his own nerves are
a-jangle, and that misplaced merriment rasps. It is the look in the
man’s face which stays his hand.
“Ye’ll be right!” cries the cook, as though replying to something in the
eye of first mate Jack Paul. “Don’t I know it? It is I who’ll follow the
skipper! I’ll just go sew my own hammock, and have it ready, shot and
all.”
As the cook starts for the galley, a maniac yell is heard from the
forecastle. At that, he pauses, sloping his ear to listen.
“I’ll have company,” says he.
First the cook; then the mates; then seven of the crew. One after the
other, they follow a thirty-two pound shot over the side; for after the
Captain’s death the sailors lose their horror of the plague-killed ones,
and sew them up and slip them into the sea as readily as though they are
bags of bran. The worst is that a fashion of dull panic takes them, and
they refuse their duty. There is no one to command, they say; and, since
there can be no commands, there can be no duty. With that they hang
moodily about the capstan, or sulk in their bunks below.
First mate Jack Paul takes the wheel, rather than leave the _King
George’s Packet_ to con itself across the ocean. As he is standing
at the wheel trying to make a plan to save the brig and himself, he
observes a sailor blundering aft. The man dives below, and the next
moment, through the open skylights, first mate Jack Paul hears him
rummaging the Captain’s cabin. In a trice, he lashes the wheel, and
slips below on the heels of the sailor. As he surmises, the man is at
the rum. Without word spoken, he knocks the would-be rum guzzler over,
and then kicks him up the companion way to the deck.
Pausing only to stick a couple of pistols in his belt, first mate Jack
Paul follows that kicked seaman with a taste for rum. He walks first to
the wheel. The wind is steady and light; for the moment the brig will
mind itself. Through some impulse he glances over the stern; the sharks
are gone. This gives him a thought; he will use the going of the sharks
to coax the men.
The five are grouped about the capstan, the one who was struck is
bleeding like tragedy. First mate Jack Paul makes them a little speech.
“There are no more to die,” says he. “The called-for eleven are dead,
and the sharks no longer follow us. That shows the ship free of menace;
we’re all to see England again. And now, mates”--there is that in the
tone which makes the five look up--“I’ve a bit of news. From now, until
its anchors are down in Whitehaven basin, I shall command this ship.”
“You?” speaks up a big sailor. “You’re no but a boy!”
“I’m man enough to sail the brig to England, and make you work like a
dog, you swab!” The look in the eye of first mate Jack Paul, makes the
capstan quintette uneasy. He goes on: “Come, my hearties, which shall
it be? Sudden death? or you to do your duty by brig and owners? For, as
sure as ever I saw the Solway, the first who doesn’t jump to my order,
I’ll plant a brace of bullets in his belly!”
And so rebellion ceases; the five come off their gloomings and their
grumblings, and spring to their work of sailing the brig. It is labor
night and day, however, for all aboard; but the winds blow the fever
away, the gales favor them, one and all they seem to have worn out
the evil fortune which dogged them out of Kingston. The _King George’s
Packet_ comes safe, at the last of it, into Whitehaven---first mate Jack
Paul and his crew of five looking for the lack of sleep like dead folk
walking the decks.
Donald, Currie & Beck pay a grateful salvage on brig and cargo to first
mate Jack Paul and the five, for bringing home the brig. This puts six
hundred pounds into the pockets of first mate Jack Paul, and one-fifth
as much into the pockets of each of the five. Then Donald, Currie & Beck
have first mate Jack Paul to dinner with the firm.
“We’ve got a ship for ye,” says shipowner Donald, as the wine is being
passed. “Ye’re to be Captain.”
“Captain!” repeats first mate Jack Paul. “A ship for me?”
“Who else, then!” returns shipowner Donald. “Ay! it’s the _Crantully
Castle_, four hundred tons, out o’ Plymouth for Bombay. Ye’re to be
Captain; besides, ye’re to have a tenth in the cargo. And now if that
suits ye, gentlemen”--addressing shipowners Currie & Beck--“let the
firm of Donald, Currie & Beck fill up the glasses to the _Crantully
Castle_ and its new Captain, Jack Paul.”